Matt Hilton - Slash and burn

All of three or four seconds had passed since the man with the rifle opened up on the Windstar. I'd gone out the far side, blocked from his view. He was still unloading the remainder of a clip. The vehicle was bucking under the onslaught but hadn't deviated from its target. I had a clear view of the gunman but I let him continue to fire. All part of the plan.

Finally one of his bullets struck the canister in the rear seat and the Windstar went up like a Roman candle. Pieces of steaming metal were cast across the fields, igniting the grass, and the flash of exploding petrol immediately turned to oily black smoke roiling out of the shattered husk of the vehicle. The Windstar's engine died, shredded by the explosion, but the vehicle continued to roll at speed towards the ranch on flaming tyres.

I turned my gun on the man I believed to be Nixon. By now he had seen the devastation his bullets had wrought on the vehicle, but he was still a moment away from realising what the consequences were. His expression turned from one of triumph to one of disbelief as the Windstar continued towards the house.

'Oh, shit!'

'That's about right,' I said under my breath. Then I shot him in the chest. The shot was aimed at centre-mass: it punched his heart out through a hole in his back. At least he was saved from witnessing just how much he'd messed up.

Immediately I started for the house, following in the wake of foul-smelling smoke, dodging puddles of burning fuel that dotted the road. I could have used some of that FLIR technology Harvey had mentioned earlier because I couldn't see a damn thing. But I was happy. I couldn't see them but they couldn't see me: not a bad trade-off.

By the time the Windstar reached the house it was limping on deflated tyres. It wasn't speeding any longer, and it wouldn't be a battering ram the way I'd used Larry Bolan's Dodge Ram back at le Coeur de la Ville. It still hit the front left corner of the house with a solid thump. I could have sworn that the building swayed for a moment, but then smoke wreathed the scene and hid the building from me. I continued running as flames began to lick through the smoke like angry serpents. My rolling incendiary device had achieved the desired result: an unorthodox but explosive method of entry.

There was no time for gloating. I had to keep moving. Show Huffman the true meaning of shock and awe. In my peripheral vision I caught movement off to my left. Another man was running through the grass in my direction, lifting an assault rifle. He fired as he came, but he had about as much danger of hitting me as of winning the lottery. I flinched out of reaction, but not from the bullets whizzing over my head. A living shadow rose up from beside the man and jammed a KA-BAR to the hilt in the man's flesh. It was a savage stab, one that pierced the point just behind the man's clavicle and drove the knife down and into the upper chambers of his heart. He died instantly. Rink grabbed the rifle out of his hands even as he fell dead on the ground. Rink dropped low again and was lost to view.

Three down, but with no idea how many we were up against, I kept running. One thing was for sure, the odds had to be creeping in our favour.

Passing the burning Windstar, I gave it little attention, happy only that the flames from the vehicle had set the tinder-dry building alight. I jumped up on to the porch, my SIG searching for targets. Hearing a thump from above me, I kicked open the front door and quickly rushed inside the building, putting my back to the door frame as I cleared the room before me. I heard the thud of running feet above. Shouts. I also heard gunfire from some distance away and guessed that Rink or Harvey had engaged someone on the far side of the building.

Now it was on for real.

I was going to flush Huffman out of his house so that I could kill him in the clear light of day.

To my left flames were licking through new holes in the wall. Pretty soon this entire corner of the house would be aflame. Then the rest would become an inferno. I could wait to allow the flames to do my job for me, but things had become way too personal between me and Huffman to allow that. I moved through the room, only barely aware that it was a kitchen, and I took a quick glance into a passageway beyond.

Clear.

I went on, my gun seeking targets.

More thumps from above. People were responding to the flames engulfing this part of the building, seeking escape at the far end. I looked for a way up there and noticed a stairway halfway down the passage. There were doors either side of the passage and it would be reckless to head directly for the stairs without first ensuring those rooms were empty. I didn't relish the thought of a bullet in my spine.

Gunfire rattled outside, Rink or Harvey loosing a barrage of bullets. Flames crackled and wood creaked and shifted. There was a dull pop as something inside the Windstar exploded, possibly the remaining fuel in the gas tank. Still no sign of Robert Huffman, though. No Larry Bolan either. For a brief second I was worried that both my enemies had fled the farm and I'd merely engaged in war with their underlings. But, I realised, the underlings had to go. They knew my name and if ever any of us were going to be safe again, they had to die.

Pulling open a door on my right, I swept the interior for targets. The room was a utility area with washing machines and the like, but no people. So I returned my attention to the bottom of the stairs. I could hear the retreat of feet as someone upstairs ran to the back of the house. I was eager to get up there after whoever that was, but it was still important that I left no one behind me.

Pulling open another door, I brought round the SIG.

Something whacked down on my extended wrist. I cursed under my breath as my hand went numb. Desperately I held on to my weapon. If I relinquished it now, that would be the end of me. In reaction I threw up my left arm and caught a blow aimed at my face on my elbow. But then a knee pounded me in the chest and I was pushed back into the passageway. I slammed the far wall, rebounded and immediately I fired. My bullet hit the man coming at me. It stopped him in his tracks, but only fleetingly. In some distant part of my mind I registered the man was wearing a Kevlar vest. The point-blank shot had struck him like a mule kick, but the vest had saved his life. The man came at me, lifting his own gun. I wasn't wearing a vest.

I dodged as the gun fired, barely avoiding the round that punched a hole in the wall next to my head; if he'd aimed at my body instead he'd have got me. There was only a fraction of a second between the realisation that I was still alive and my response. I brought up my gun and fired again, hitting the man in the meat of his left thigh. The bullet took a chunk of his leg, but his forward momentum threw him against me and we both grappled with each other's gun hands like we were engaged in a crazy dance.

I was only vaguely aware of the man trying to kill me. It was the same sinuous son of a bitch who'd survived when I took Kate from Huffman. He was older than me by fifteen years, slim of build, but strong. Even with one leg crippled, the man still had an incredible fluidity to his movement. He flipped my gun hand, turning my gun towards me, trapped my elbow, and then headbutted me in the face. I saw red flashes. But I didn't let the sudden shock stop me. I pivoted on my feet, lifting and looping my trapped elbow so that we disengaged from our chest-to-chest position, then I kicked at the knee of his good leg. The man grunted, but he straightened my elbow out, swung his armpit over it while raising the wrist, then forced his body weight down on the flexed elbow in an effort at snapping it. My gun hand was stretched out aiming away from him, but his gun hand was also tied up as he grappled with my wrist. Neither of us could get off a shot. I released his gun wrist, giving me room to move, and I dropped my centre of balance lower than his, taking pressure off my elbow. It was simply about angles. I turned my elbow a fraction and he no longer had me controlled.